Sometimes serious. Sometimes humorous. Always unpredictable. By Dan Pimentel - Welcome to the Airplanista Aviation Blog, where I take a lighthearted look at general and business aviation, the airlines, and the incredible and generous community of aviators called #Avgeeks...they are my aviation family. I am currently available for magazine and corporate writing assignments - Email me here.

3:10 PM

If You Want to Vote GOP, Consider This First

Here we are on the eve of the most important election in most of our lifetimes. Tuesday – in what is already a truly historic election – we will elect a new president and a new wave of Senators and Representatives to guide this country out of the quagmire that has been left by eight years of George Bush and his band of pathetic, ethically-bankrupt GOP henchmen.

Many of us have already voted early, with record numbers waiting for hours for the very first opportunity to cast their ballot. I believe the multitudes of early voters is a clear indication that We the People are completely tired of the screwing we have endured under BushCo.

As you head into the voting booth next week, go ahead, vote for McSame/Palin if you have the courage. Today, that ticket was endorsed by Dick Cheney, which ought to cement the notion that the last thing McCain will bring to Washington is change. Cheney and his cronies at Halliburton and Exxon love things just the way they are, so if they thought for a minute McCain was serious about being all "Mavericky" then Cheney would have remained in his undisclosed location for the remainder of this election.

Let's take a quick look at just what damage Bushie's version of compassionate conservatism has brought to the aviation sector in America and around the globe. As the supreme Lame Duck prepares to slither out the back door or The White House, we find:

From a "think tank" called Forecast International: In a new report to be issued in December, Forecast International has projected that production of the Eclipse 500 will soon end. The Connecticut-based market research firm believes that the aircraft’s manufacturer, Eclipse Aviation, will not attract new investment necessary to allow it to continue making the aircraft beyond the first quarter of 2009.

And this from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Cirrus Aircraft laid off 105 people Tuesday — 75 at its Duluth plant, 30 at its plant in Grand Forks, N.D. The latest cuts amount to about 9 percent of Cirrus' workforce. In early September, Cirrus laid off about 7 percent of its workforce — 71 employees in Duluth and 29 in Grand Forks.

And this from across the pond: Grob Aerospace GmbH was forced to enter the preliminary insolvency process on August 18th, 2008. To ensure the August to October salary payments for all employees in Mattsies, Grob Aerospace GmbH will now have to file for insolvency this week. From November 3rd, 2008, most employees will be released from work. A core team will remain in Mattsies to keep business activities running on a minimum scale.

Now go ahead and freak out if you are screaming that the financial mess this planet is in cannot possibly be the fault of Bush, but I retain the right to ignore you. See, had Bushie and his hand-picked Brownie clones not been more interested in generating record profits for their pals, they might have heard the many warnings that their "look the other way" policies that "regulated" our financial giants was nearing an implosion. But when you and your buddies need a Freightliner to haul the cash to your offshore bank account, why change things? Besides, in just a few HOURS it will be Barack Obama's problem to clean up.

So go ahead, be one of the fools that votes GOP this time around. That is if you think this country and the world economy can withstand at least four more years of this grab-ass, back door version of Good Ol' Boy governance.